


steel your heart, my child

by tricksterity



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: AU, Colonist (Mass Effect), Father-Daughter Relationship, Gen, Saren raises Shepard
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-14
Updated: 2015-10-14
Packaged: 2018-04-26 09:00:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4998751
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tricksterity/pseuds/tricksterity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shepard’s pistol was pointed up at Saren, who stood resplendent and insane on the dais where the Council should stand. She had a perfect shot. Saltwater began to drip down her face, burning tracks down her cheeks, her nose, falling from her chin to the shattered Citadel glass she stood on. A sob burst out from her chest, and she lowered her gun and her eyes to the floor.</p><p>"I can't do it."</p><p>Her father would be so disappointed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	steel your heart, my child

**Author's Note:**

> So I thought, what would _really_ break my heart? And my brain came up with the answer immediately: Saren as Shepard's adoptive father who still dies. Enjoy. Or, like, don't.

* * *

 

Shepard’s pistol was pointed up at Saren, who stood resplendent and insane on the dais where the Council should stand, and the words he spoke clawed at her ears like a nest of stinging hornets. These were not his words. These words belonged to Sovereign.

 

She had a perfect shot. If she took it now, one to the heart and one to the head, he would fall to the ground before her, dead. The turian who had upended the entire galaxy, brought war to their front doorstep, killed mercilessly and relentlessly, who had brought a Reaper to kill them all and cleanse the galaxy.

 

Shepard could end it now.

 

Her hands shook, and she lost her perfect shot. If she took it now, she would most likely hit a non-vital area, and she could lose. She tried to steady her hands, call up the flawless discipline that Commander Nolana Shepard was known for but it failed her when she most needed it. Her hands shook harder, and she knew she would miss if she tried to take the shot. Her father would be so disappointed in her if she missed.

 

 _Shepard, take the shot,_ was whispered from her right – Kaidan.

 

 _It’s now or never,_ was whispered from her left – Garrus.

 

Her hands were now shaking so visibly that anyone would look at her and see her composure slipping and now her sight was blurring as the traitorous tears built up in her ducts and that burn began in the back of her throat. Kaidan and Garrus made concerned noises from her flanks as she stared into the glowing eyes of Saren Arterius, his body riddled with Reaper tech and implants that made him seem more synthetic than organic.

 

Saltwater began to drip down her face, burning tracks down her cheeks, her nose, falling from her chin to the shattered Citadel glass she stood on. Her arms were shaking from the weight of holding her pistol up for so long and Saren was no more than a blurred shape before her, his arms held out to his sides like Ash’s necklace of the Earth messiah Shepard had never worshipped.

 

Kaidan and Garrus were confused as her aim wavered and the barrel of her gun dipped down, just a scant inch, but it lowered nonetheless. The screaming in her heart warred with her well-trained muscles as she wished to the universe that she could be anywhere but here, doing anything but this.

 

Her face screwed up as the hot tears came faster, and Saren’s glowing eyes that seemed more like optics were focused right on her like twin sniper sights. She swallowed and it burned, and her lips and chin trembled in time with her hands. Her finger was tight on the trigger, ready to pull at a moment’s notice, let the round fire from her pistol and into Saren, ready to end this war and save the lives of the millions who lived on the Citadel.

 

Her finger tightened on the trigger, and then slipped off it altogether.

 

A sob burst out from her chest, and she lowered her gun and her eyes to the floor.

 

Her father would be so disappointed.

 

“I can’t do it,” she confessed to the burning ruins of the Citadel, to Kaidan, to Garrus, to Saren.

 

“Shepard, he killed Ashley! He killed Nihlus! Take the shot!” Kaidan encouraged, fury lacing his voice like a flame licking at his flesh, and his arms began to glow with the tell-tale sign of biotics. If she didn’t take the shot, he would.

 

“He has killed hundreds, possibly thousands of people, Shepard,” Garrus joined in. “He’s indoctrinated. We have to.” Garrus tightened his talons on his sniper rifle – if she didn’t take the shot, he would.

 

Shepard blinked through the tears and looked up to Saren who stared right back at her, and her throat ached and the saltwater was beginning to dry on her face despite more that kept spilling over. Her nose wanted to run, and so did she.

 

“Shepard,” Saren said, messianistic and indoctrinated.

 

“No,” she replied. Kaidan and Garrus thought she meant that she wouldn’t shoot him. That is not what she meant.

 

“Arterius,” Saren corrected, and another sob clawed it’s way up Shepard’s throat and spilled into the empty space between them. “I...” Saren began, then paused, frowned, reconsidered.

 

“Please don’t make me do this,” Shepard pleaded. Her father would be so disappointed to hear her pleading, begging, doing anything other than decisive action. The needs of the many outweighed the needs of the few. Victory at any cost.

 

“You don’t have to do what Sovereign wants,” she continued. “Please. I don’t think I can do this. You can fight this.”

 

Saren is still where he stands, head tilted to the side as if contemplating her words, or maybe he is listening to the poisonous whispers of Sovereign that has already destroyed his mind, his body and his willpower.

 

“You’ve lost, you know that, don’t you?” Saren said. “In a few minutes, Sovereign will have full control of all the Citadel systems, the relay will open, and the Reapers will return.” He was not threatening. He was warning – encouraging.

 

“I have changed since you last saw me, Shepard,” he continued. “Improved. Sovereign has… upgraded me.”

 

“It’s not too late,” Shepard begged, adjusting her grip on her gun, trying to hold it back up to level from where it was pointed at the floor in defeat. Let training take over – point, aim, shoot. It would have been easy if it were anyone else she had to point her gun at.

 

“This is not who you are,” Shepard said. “You are not this person. You are not someone who kills without mercy and slaughters for no purpose. You are not someone who gives in to the will of anyone else!”

 

Saren’s mandibles fluttered at her words, and she pushed on, voice thick and eyes wet and burning.

 

“You are Saren Arterius, you are a Spectre, and you swore an oath to protect the galaxy at the cost of your own life! You are the turian who rescued a little girl on Mindoir who had no hope or future and made her into something worthwhile,” she yelled, face screwing up as she tried to hold back the onslaught of tears. Shepard felt like her heart was ripping itself to shreds.

 

“You’re a turian who held a shaking little girl through her nightmares of blood and horror. You’re a father who kept a crappy drawing in his armor whenever he went out on missions to remind him what he had to return to. You’re a father who stood proudly beside his daughter even when everyone around you said that you were a traitor to your race,” she continued. “You’re a Spectre who wanted his daughter to be by his side and had his heart broken when she left for the Alliance.”

 

Saren had gone still at her words though his own hands were shaking.

 

“When I saw the announcement…” he said, voice shaking like he feared the words he spoke. “I have never been more proud.”

 

“I can’t…” Shepard sobbed, adjusting and readjusting her grip on her gun. “I can’t kill you, papa. I won’t and I can’t.”

 

Whatever Kaidan and Garrus said next meant nothing to her as Saren’s eyes shuttered and he made the same noise he used to when they would spar and she would punch the air straight out of her lungs just like he’d shown her. His mandibles fluttered and his hand reached out for her just like it did that day he found her cowering in her parents’ blood on Mindoir, the Spectre that hated humans who ended up adopting one for his own.

 

“I know I disappointed you,” Shepard said. “I know I’m disappointing you now. I should have put a bullet through you five minutes ago but I _can’t_ because I could never become the perfect weapon you wanted me to be and you broke my heart and I spent the last ten years trying to hate you but I _can’t_.”

 

“Nolana…” Saren said softly, and Shepard was no turian, but she knew what those subvocals meant. She swallowed, steeled her heart, and held her gun back up, finger on the trigger.

 

“Victory at any cost,” Shepard whispered. Her finger tightened on the trigger, but not enough to pull it back. Saren bowed his head slightly, offering her the perfect shot straight through his skull.

 

“I’m sorry, Nolana,” he murmured. “I should have fought harder for you. What I put you through was unforgivable, but I am so proud of you. Sovereign cannot take that from me.”

 

Shepard sobbed and ran towards him, leaping onto the platform where he stood as she wrapped his arms around him. His arms remained at his sides – for if he raised them, it could be to return the embrace, but it could also be to kill her.

 

She pulled back and placed the barrel of her gun directly under his chin, pointing straight up through his head, and he tilted his head back to give her another perfect angle. Her eyes burned and her vision swam and she tightened her hand on his carapace like she did when she was a child.

 

“I forgive you,” she whispered. His mandibles flared out, he closed his eyes, and Shepard did not pull the trigger.

 

She felt her father’s warm blood spray upon her face, and she fell to her knees with a wail, gun falling from his fingers as she clutched his body to her chest and screamed.

 

Then the discipline he instilled in her kicked in and she rose to her feet and wiped away the tears.

 

She picked up her gun, and with murder blazing in her eyes, turned to watch Sovereign be destroyed.

 

“His name was Saren Arterius, he was my father, and he died a hero.”

 

* * *

 


End file.
